SUMMER MORNING SONG.
FROM THE DUTCH.
Up, sleeper! dreamer, up! for now
There’s gold upon the mountain’s brow—
There’s light on forests, lakes, and meadows:
The dew-drops shine on floweret bells;
The village clock of morning tells.
Up, man! Out, cattle! for the dells
And dingles teem with shadows.
Up! out! o’er furrow and o’er field!
The claims of toil some moments yield,
For morning’s bliss and time is fleeter
Than thought; so out! ’tis dawning yet;
Why twilight’s lovely hour forget?
For sweet though be the workman’s sweat,
The wanderer’s sweat is sweeter.
Up! to the fields! through shine and stour!
What hath the dull and drowsy hour
So blest as this—the glad heart leaping,
To hear morn’s early song sublime?
See earth rejoicing in its prime!
The summer is the waking time,
The winter, time for sleeping.
O fool! to sleep such hours away,
While blushing nature wakes to day,
Or down through summer morning soaring!
’Tis meet for thee the winter long,
When snows fall fast, and winds blow strong,
To waste the night amid the throng,
Their vinous poisons pouring.
The very beast that crops the flower
Hath welcome for the dawning hour:
Aurora smiles; her beckonings claim thee.
Listen! look round! the chirp, the hum,
Song, low, and bleat—there’s nothing dumb—
All love, all life! Come slumberer, come!
The meanest thing shall shame thee.
We come—we come—our wanderings take
Through dewy field, by misty lake,
And rugged paths, and woods pervaded
By branches o’er, by flowers beneath,
Making earth odorous with their breath;
Or through the shadeless gold-gorze heath,
Or 'neath the poplars shaded.
Were we of feather, or of fin,
How blest to dash the river in,
Thread the rock-stream, as it advances—
Or, better, like the birds above,
Rise to the greenest of the grove,
And sing the matin song of love,
Amid the highest branches!
O thus to revel, thus to range,
I’ll yield the counter, bank, or 'Change—
The busier crowds all peace destroying:
The toil with snow that roofs our brains,
The seeds of care which harvests pains;
The wealth for more which strains and strains,
Still less and less enjoying!
O, happy who the city’s noise,
Can quit for nature’s quiet joys—
Quit worldly sin and worldly sorrow;
No more 'midst prison walls abide,
But in God’s temple, vast and wide,
Pour praises every eventide,
Ask mercies every morrow!
No seraph’s flaming sword hath driven
That man from Eden or from Heaven—
From earth’s sweet smiles and winning features;
For him by toils and troubles toss’d,
By wealth and wearying cares engross’d,
For him a Paradise is lost,
But not for happy creatures!
Come—though a glance it may be—come—
Enjoy, improve; then hurry home,
For life strong urgencies must bind us!
Yet mourn not; morn shall wake anew,
And we shall wake to bless it new.
Homewards! the herds that shake the dew,
We’ll leave in peace behind us!
Anonymous Translation. H. Tollens, 1778.
V.
Lark and Nightingale.
The voices of these two noblest of the singing-birds of the Old World may be heard, in echoing accompaniment, throughout the prolonged choir of European poets, from the earliest dawn of civilization to the present hour. There are few poems of any length, in either of the languages of Europe, in which some allusion to one or the other has not a place. The noblest poets of the earth were born companions to these birds; beneath skies saluted by the lark, among groves haunted by the nightingale. These little creatures sung with Homer and Sappho among the isles of Greece—for Virgil and Horace on the plains of Italy; they cheered Dante in his lifelong wandering exile, and Petrarch in his solitary hermitage. Conceive also the joy with which Chaucer, and Shakspeare, and Spenser listened, each in his day, among the daisied fields of England, to music untaught, instinctive like their own! What pure delight, indeed, have these birds not given to the heart of genius during thousands of springs and summers! How many generations have they not charmed with their undying melodies! They would almost seem by their sweetness to have soothed the inexorable powers of Time and Death. Were an old Greek or an ancient Roman to rise from the dust this summer’s day—were he to awaken, after ages of sleep, to walk his native soil again, scarce an object on which his eye fell would wear a familiar aspect; scarce a sound which struck his ear but would vibrate there most strangely; yet with the dawn, rising from the plain of Marathon, or the Latin Hills, he would hear the same noble lark which sung in his boyhood; and with the moon, among the olives and ilexes shading the fallen temple, would come the same sweet nightingale which entranced his youth.